Talk:Forrest Mims

Forrest Mims did not Misrepresent Prof. Eric Pianka's Statements

209.208.77.219 03:00, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Talk:Mims-Pianka controversy#Forrest_Mims_did_not_Misrepresent_Prof._Eric_Pianka.27s_Statements

Removed from this page. No point to troll anonymously on three different pages. DLX 05:41, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

I have never "troll[ed]" in my life, nor would I. Neither am I anonymous: my legal name is James Redford. 209.208.77.168 22:30, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

You are anonymous in so far as you have an IP address, not a user name. JoshuaZ 23:18, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps you are using some technical idiom when you say "anonymous." My legal name is James Redford. Hardly am I anonymous. And for future reference, you would do well to write it "insofar," as opposed to "in so far." 209.208.77.168 23:34, 11 April 2006 (UTC)

Not logged in == we can see only IP == anonymous. And posting lengthy comment to three different talk pages is trolling. Q.E.D DLX 04:54, 12 April 2006 (UTC)

Your first sentence is a non sequiter, and hence hardly qualifies as quod erat demonstrandum. Your second sentence doesn't even follow an attempted logical progression, but instead requires the reader to assume its asserted truth on its face, and hence it also does not qualify as quod erat demonstrandum.

Concerning your first sentence, it is most definitely a non sequiter because I have repeatedly given my legal name--James Redford--which provides far less actual anonymity for me than if I had used some made-up log-in name like "DLX."

As regards your second sentence, I have never posted anything with ill intent, and my commentary was posted on extactly the Talk pages where it was quite relevant. Hence, it is quite a bit more than absurd to accuse me of trolling. One making such a chimerical accusation reveals far more about themself than it does about me. 209.208.77.220 21:38, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Perhaps this was not well explained above. The step in the above from "not logged in" to "We can see only IP" is an implication, the next step is definitionally. A user is defined on Wikipedia to be anonymous if they do not have a user name. In general, anonymous users are taken less seriously and presumed to be more pov pushing than registered users. This presumption is born out by a large amount of experience. In contrast, registering demonstrates a minimal commitment to the project that will generally make people more likely to listen to you. JoshuaZ 21:46, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Like I said, some technical idiom. But don't confuse technical idioms with the words as they are understood by most people who use said words. I could define the sky as being, in part, "a dark monster coming to consume you," and when people object I could simply say that by "a dark monster coming to consume you" it is meant "blue." And I would be right by definition (if we agree that the sky is at least sometimes blue).

So also, I could be defined as "the most destructive force in the known universe," and when someone (such as myself) objects, the person asserting this could simply say that by "the most destructive force in the known universe" it is meant "a person who didn't log-in to Wikipedia to post their comment." And said person would be right by definition.

The point being is that I am, in actual fact, far less anonymous than people using log-in names such as "DLX" or "JoshuaZ."

As far as me being taken less seriously than if I had logged in, that's a logical fallacy known as ad hominem. 209.208.77.220 22:22, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Actually no it isn't a logically fallacious ad hominem, since there is a limited amount of time that editors have. If an editor said "209.208.77.220's argument is unsound because 209.* is an anon" that would be a fallacious ad hominem attack. However, if a user says "I haven't had time to look at 209.*'s argument but he is an anon who posted it in multiple locations on a controversial. These are strong signs of an arguments poor quality. I won't bother to evaluate it" that is a logical position. JoshuaZ 22:29, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Your above argument is a non sequiter. It's still an ad hominem, since it doesn't address the arguments made by the person, but instead concerns details surrounding the person. I know you don't like to think of it as an ad hominem, because apparently that thought doesn't sit well with you, but despite your unease with that thought it is still an ad hominem nonetheless. 209.208.77.220 22:45, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

Verification?

Can anyone verify this claim:

"He wrote some Amateur Scientist columns for Scientific American magazine in 1990, but the magazine refused to hire him after discovering that Mims was a creationist and had doubts about evolution. However, the magazine did say that Mims' work was "great", "fabulous" and "should be published somewhere.""

Considering that quite a lot of things from this guy are snake oil, I really wouldn't put this claim here w/o any (independent!) sources. DLX on 07:14, 3 April 2006]]

Here's what Mim's had to say about SciAm. MarcoTolo 18:08, 4 April 2006 (UTC)

Controversy should be expanded - possibly from Eric Pianka article? DLX 06:55, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

You need to see http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CA/CA320_1.html on that controversy, as it is a bit more complex than it might initially appear. — Dunc|☺ 10:38, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Thanks, a good link - will include this to the article DLX 11:21, 6 April 2006 (UTC)

Controversy

Transcript of Pianka's speech. Whole controversy should be expanded, to show it as an smear campain against Pianka and evolution in general - or would link to Pianka's article be enough? Also William Dembski's campain?

Reference needed

I removed the sentence "NASA has sent Mims and his instruments to several of the Western states and twice to Brazil to measure the effects of smoke from large wildfires." pending a reliable reference. -- MarcoTolo 23:10, 27 April 2006 (UTC)

"Borrowed" material

As an electronics hobbyist I used to be impressed with Mims's Engineer's Notebooks, until I started buying the chips and found the exact same information on the data sheets for the chips as provided by the manufacturers. I have added a sentence on that, as contributing to a more balanced view of the subject, since the opening paragraph reads like a publicist's work. If it is too controversial, you are welcome to delete it. 83.79.7.14 07:32, 15 September 2007 (UTC)

Do you Know if Mims did the borrowing or if it was the other way around?

Authors of technical book often quote the technical data from the manufacturers. Don Lancaster did this in his classic "TTL Cookbook" that was in print for over twenty years and sold a million copies.

Before the internet, a casual hobbyist did not have access to semiconductor data sheets. These were published in thick data books that were given to design engineers but sold to the general public. If a project contained 5 different semiconductors a casual hobbyist would have to write off the each company to find out how to order a data book.

Forrest Mims' books were targeted at the casual hobbyist and it was very appropriate to include the data sheet with the manufacturer's permission. -- SWTPC6800 10:13, 10 November 2007 (UTC)

Opinion #2:

This accusation of borrowed material is completely ridiculous, and I'll wager that the poster making this claim hasn't spent even five minutes of his life depending on his um, vast knowledge of electronics to make a living. He says that he "found the exact same information on the data sheets for the chips as provided by the manufacturers". This is coming from someone who doesn't know about data sheets and where they fit into the world. He, evidently, didn't notice that the data sheet from one brand, say, Motorola, had the exact same information as the data sheet from, say, National. Ah ha! No, no ah-ha here, information is not subject to copyright and, more importantly, despite the copyright notice on data sheets, the companies are making them just to sell the parts and are begging you to rip them off any way you can. Many, many companies build products using the example schematics in the data sheet. If it works, that is the obvious place to start with a new design, modify as needed or not, then manufacture it. They want you to do that so that you will have the application to order their chips for. My company does this. Everybody does this.

Back on point, in 1980 when I was ten years old and reading the Forrest Mims III Engineer's Notebooks series of books (then being sold by Radio Shack), I had no data sheets, I had never seen a data sheet, I didn't know how to get a data sheet, wouldn't have known what it was or why I wanted it, and if I had it, I'd throw it down in boredom, as it would have the three things I wanted to know buried behind 97 things like thermal information I didn't want to know. Mims gave me a picture of how it worked, and showed me why I wanted it. If we had only had data sheets and not Forrest Mims III Engineer's Notebooks, millions of us would have never gotten into electronics at all. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.127.211.40 (talk) 15:52, 3 March 2009 (UTC)

So the explanation is that the accusation of borrowed material is ridiculous because the original authors (guys who used their vast knowledge of electronics to make a living) wanted him (a guy who used his vast knowledge of electronics to sell books) to borrow it. It doesn't take a vast knowledge of electronics to recognize a specious response. As a hobbyist in high school and college I used to buy my parts at Radio Shack, too, and they all came with data sheets in the package (no need to buy a data book). Yes, the manufacturers all use them; yes, they all want to sell product, so no, they probably don't care that they get ripped off. But this is the biography of a living individual that presents the individual as the author, not the copyist, of books on electronics, using words like "created." NPOV is seriously lacking in this article.96.35.175.244 (talk) 15:29, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Excessive detail for a biography

User:Time Guy added the following section, this has way too much detail on one small topic for a biography. I am moving it to this talk page. SWTPC6800 (talk) 18:53, 14 March 2010 (UTC)

Using LED's as narrow band light sensors

Among Forrest Mims many accomplishments, he was the first person to realize that LED's (Light Emitting Diodes) had the ability to not only emit light, but also to sense light. This dual-action (emission/detection) of LEDs or “Mims Effect” was unknown before his discovery.

Forrest Mims interest in LEDs began when he was experimenting with photosensitive devices back in 1962. In the "Backscatter" section in an online issue of The Citizen Scientist, Forrest Mims describes this himself:

While a high school senior in 1962, I first got the idea that light sensors should be able to double as light detectors. So I connected an automobile ignition coil to a cadmium sulfide photoresistor, switched on the power, and observed bright flashes of green light emitted by the semiconductor. The green flashes were distinctively different from the yellow flashes of an electrical arc.

While studying government (my major) in college, I found that certain silicon photodiodes can emit near-infrared radiation that can be detected by similar photodiodes. I managed to send modulated tones between such photodiodes. In 1971 I demonstrated the ability of many LEDs to detect light while experimenting with an optical fiber communication system. By placing a single LED at each end of the fiber, it was possible to send signals both ways through the fiber with only a single, dual purpose semiconductor device at each end of the fiber.

Later experiments by Forrest Mims were done in 1971, when he utilized two LEDs to perform bi-directional communication. In 1980, Forrest Mims demonstrated bi-directional LED voice communication through the air using near-infrared (940 nm) LEDs and also through a 100-meter section of optical fiber (650 nm). This demonstration was done at 1325 L Street in Washington D.C. – the exact same site where Alexander Graham Bell invented lightwave communications exactly 100 years earlier! Present for the demonstration, which was sponsored by the National Geographic Society, were representatives from National Geographic, the Smithsonian Institution and Bell Labs. Bell first demonstrated his Photophone on 3 June 1880.

In addition to utilizing the dual-mode use of LED's for communication, Forrest Mims decided to utilize these same principles to measure specific properties of the atmosphere. In a paper published in Applied Optics (1992), entitled “Sun Photometer with light-emitting diodes as spectrally selective filters, Forrest Mims describes how “Light-emitting diodes (LEDs) can function as light detectors with a spectral bandpass similar to the diode's spectral emission band, typically 25-35 nm at the half-maximum points. This means that LEDs can serve as detectors in miniature sun photometers that measure precipatible water and atmospheric turbidity at wavelengths from 555 to 940 nm.”

When an optical sensor is designed, very careful attention must be given to the filtering used to guarantee a response for a specific wavelength. A typical method would be to use an expensive optical sensor with even more costly interference filters. Even when this is done, the response may not be as narrow as desired and may be unstable over time. A simple and inexpensive solution was realized by Forrest by using LEDs, due to the fact that the emission and detection wavelengths of LEDs have very narrow bandwidths. The peak wavelength for detection is slightly below that of the peak emission wavelength. The amount of shift is typically around 25 to 35 nm below the peak emission wavelength.

Among the many electronics books written for Radio Shack, Forrest Mims also developed several electronics kits. One in particular made use of the "Mims Effect" of LEDs, by utilizing 5 separate LEDs acting as narrow band light sensors to perform atmospheric analysis. Dubbed the Sun & Sky Monitoring Station , this kit - which sold 12,000 units - allowed the user to make sophisticated measurements, ranging from measuring the total amount of sunlight at a given location, the amount of atmospheric haze, the total amount of atmospheric water vapor, the amount of PAR (Photosynthetic Radiation), and determine the ET (Extraterrestrial Constant). Sadly though, the Sun & Sky Monitoring Station is no longer carried by Radio Shack.

For some additional details concerning the Sun & Sky Monitoring Station, it is necessary to quote Forrest Mims directly from the Sun & Sky Station instruction manual:

The spectral tuning available by using different kinds of LEDs forms the basis for the Radio Shack Sun and Sky Monitoring Station, which uses four different kinds of LEDs to detect wavelengths of about 505 nm, 625 nm, 816 nm and 930 nm. This very broad range of wavelengths from very simple, inexpensive LEDs permits this instrument to measure photosynthetic radiation (PAR) and to detect aerosols and the total column water vapor.

Using LEDs as narrow band light sensors opens up a whole world of applications. Following upon Forrest Mims early work with LEDs as narrow band sensors, he developed the TOPS (Total Ozone Portable Spectrometer) instrument that can measures the ozone layer. Although the TOPS unit did not utilize LED’s operating in the Mims effect, it was a prototype for the current commercial version - MicroTOPS II which instead of LEDs, uses narrowband filters and photodiodes. Some of the many examples of Forrest’s idea of using LED’s as narrow band light sensors include the following circuits and devices:

A Pulsed Light LED receiver

An Optical Sensing approach utilizing LEDs

An LED based photometer

Using LEDs to detect vegetation

An LED based Sun Photometer

Last, but certainly not least, there is a cool video from New York University showing the "Mims Effect" LED Touch Switch in operation.

References

This appears to still be an issue today, there's one lengthy CV-style section that only apparently cites one independent source, the rest being original reporting using primary sources of the author. —PaleoNeonate – 09:48, 19 June 2021 (UTC)

Educational Background

The assertion that Mr. Mims "has no formal academic training in science" seems contradicted by the section "Early life and education" where his studies at Texas A&M University are described. 109.228.169.205 (talk) 15:58, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Not necessarily. It says he entered as a physics major, but it doesn't say that he ever took a physics class (or that he didn't). Anyway, taking a few undergrad classes in a subject isn't usually considered "formal academic training". Inasmuch as the statement is sourced to his own website, it's probably fine, although it could be qualified as coming from Mims and not an independent third party. Guettarda (talk) 17:09, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

Mims also talk about aversion to math in his book Siliconnections. Numerous newspaper articles published in 1966 (and later) mention his aid for the blind. This was a device that used state of the art light emitting diodes. He went to an engineering school but got a degree in political science. It is very plausible that he did poorly in higher level math courses.
"New Device Helps The Blind". The San Antonio Light. April 15, 1966. p. 2.
Although a political science major at A&M, Mims' second interest obviously is "science and inventing things."
-- SWTPC6800 (talk) 05:58, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Pharyngula link

Seems to be a blog post based on second-hand hearsay; not sure why the link is included... AnonMoos (talk) 14:48, 24 January 2012 (UTC)

Skeptical of Global Warming - in what way?

I suggest removing the following line from the end of the third paragraph.

"He is also a skeptic of global warming."  

This statement needs clarification (exactly which aspects of Global Warming is Mr. Mims skeptical of) and external validation, and the two references cited #8 and #9 supply neither - they don't lead to the cited papers. Even on Mr Mims own personal publication list on his Website, I could not find these references.

^ Temperature doesn’t affect global warming Forrest Mims, Seguin Gazette-Enterprise, September 1, 1999. Publications, ForrestMims.org ^ Questions and Answers About Climate Change Forrest M. Mims III. Citizen Scientist, Society for Amateur Scientists, March 11, 2005 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tgmcnaughton (talk • contribs) 22:26, 9 July 2012 (UTC)

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Poor choice of quote

In the discussion of LEDs as photodiodes, it quotes Mims saying that he had the idea that "light sensors should be able to double as light detectors." That appears to be an accurate quote of the source, but it's nonsense. Sensing and detection are basically the same thing. What he clearly means is that light sensors should be able to double as light emitters; they are already detectors. In the next few sentences, he describes his experiment testing the idea, using a photoresistor to emit the kind of light that it would normally sense or detect. The quoted sentence appears to have been a writing error on Mims's part, or by the editor of the original publication. Is there a better way to use this source? I'm tempted to insert "sic" in the quote, but then it might require some explanation. Maybe there are other sentences that could be quoted instead and would better represent the information. 2607:FEA8:129F:E389:0:0:0:8E23 (talk) 20:04, 8 April 2019 (UTC)

Without the time of finding a more suitable quote, perhaps a footnote would be appropriate.

Alternately, you could do:

He referenced the idea he had in high school:
"...I connected an automobile ignition coil to a cadmium sulfide photoresistor, switched on the power, and observed bright flashes of green light..."

Personally (and this is obviously a style thing), [sic] is a bit much for reasons you call out. It's saying "he said it wrong, but we all know what he actually meant", where that debate would be difficult to make with a technical topic. Just my 2c. Drewmutt (^ᴥ^) talk 17:00, 10 April 2019 (UTC)

Atari Punk Console

• [1]
• [2].
• scholarly paper

These sources were dropped into AfD discussion for the aforementioned article, whose consensus was to merge here. They maybe useful for expanding the Atari Punk Console subsection Graywalls (talk) 02:23, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

'kaustic machines'

In: Forrest Mims #Stepped-tone generator (Atari Punk Console) / last sentence.

Summary:

'kaustic machines' is a company that produces sound circuits.

Their logo spells it with lower 'k' and 'm'.

--- ---

Sources:

(Google:)

W O R T H _ E K I K .:: GEOCITIES.ws ::. http://www.geocities.ws › worthekik › atari this is a neat little noisemaker from kaustic machines. a sample and the schematic can be found here. a vero layout by andrew carrel is here. an altered " ...

--> http://www.geocities.ws/worthekik/atari.html

--- ---

(Gooogle:)

Robert Dickson (hipstarsound) - Profile Pinterest https://www.pinterest.com › hipstarsound kaustic machines. kaustic machines. Robert Dickson · DIY Audio · Dc Circuit · Circuit Design · Diy Electronics · Electronics Projects · Synthesizer Diy · Diy ...

---

--> https://www.pinterest.com/hipstarsound/

---

(link) 'kaustic machines'

--> https://www.pinterest.com/pin/349662358539191493/

( NOT recognizable as a link ) 'compiler.kaustic.net'

--> https://compiler.kaustic.net/machines/apc.html

There is a logo 'kaustic machines'.

--- ---

Ping welcome, Steue (talk) 22:14, 12 October 2023 (UTC)